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Shortly before he was found dead by co-workers, Leo Lafond complained of not feeling well, an inquest into his death was told Tuesday.

Lafond, 57, died Sept. 11, 2007, when the bulldozer he was operating ran over him. He was employed by OCL Trucking and Excavating, which was building a service road on CVRD Inco property in Copper Cliff.

OCL employee Ray Lalonde testified he attended a safety meeting with Lafond the morning of the fatal accident and that Lafond "said he wasn't feeling well, but he never got into details about it."

Later, under questioning by Lafond's daughter Carmen, one of four people posing questions to witnesses, Lalonde said Leo Lafond made reference to a headache, but that was all he said.

A short time later, Lafond was found by two employees of another company working on the same project. He was lying on the ground near the bulldozer. An autopsy showed he had been crushed to death.

Lalonde said the training session that day dealt with the importance of wearing a seat-b

elt when operating heavy equipment such as bulldozers.

But Al Roy, another OCL employee who operated the same bulldozer at that job site, said he was not surprised Lafond may not have been wearing the seatbelt.

"I didn't wear the seatbelt on that job because that water was 14-feet deep. I didn't want to be trapped in the seat if the machine went into the ditch," said Roy.

Lafond, who was on the job site less than an hour when his body was discovered, was to use the bulldozer to level some boulders, creating a roadway for trucks hauling material for a berm being built beside the creek.

Roy said he never wore the bulldozer's seatbelt on that project at all.

Rather than focus on the seatbelt, Roy suggested a kill switch be built into the machine so that it would immediately shut off if the operator were not in the seat.

Under questioning by Carmen Lafond, Roy testified he was aware he could lose his job by openly admitting he did not wear the seatbelt.